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10.29.2010

The post about brownies, machetes, and house hunting.

The following activity is no stranger to me: wandering through our apartment, wishing we had a house, humming a tune in a minor key so as to fully and accurately capture my grief over not having my own mortgage payment.

Well, guess what? I believe my tune has just changed, because Rick and I are officially looking for a house. Which is why I have been less than attentive to the ol' rented house projects and blog lately.

Our house hunt has been pretty casual so far, with our parents invited to tag along (my mom calls it "intruding"). It's amazing, though, the differences from one house to the next as far as how well people prepare their house for someone to look at it. In case you were wondering, this is where the brownies and the machete come in. Yes, I said machete. As in weapon. As in extremely dangerous piece of equipment. Read on for the gory details about that house and the other houses that we have given extremely clever names to.

1. The house where we couldn't go into the rooms because there was too much stuff in them. Seriously, we think they need to be nominated for the TV show Hoarders. At first, we thought, "Well, they are in the process of moving." And then we opened closets and drawers and found more stuff. NO idea where the rest of the stuff used to live. Here are some pictures for good measure:

2. The house with the cigarette pack and a dirty old highchair greeting us on the front porch. The doorbell was also hanging off, to which Rick said, "Don't they have a screwdriver?" My mom and my sister and I were pretty sure that even we, if we worked reeeeaaally hard at it, could figure out how to screw the doorbell back to the side of the door. We like to call ourselves Lucy, Ethel, and Ethel Jr.

3. The house with the machete in the attic. What kind of neighborhood is this, anyway?! I am not making this up. Here's proof.

4. The house with the 100% floral tiled bathroom. Enough said.

5. The extremely clean and organized house with the brownies and a sign that said "Please help yourself!"<smiley face>. Of course Rick obeyed. I failed to snap a picture of him enjoying his brownie, but this is what he looks like when enjoying baked goods:

I also failed to snap a picture of him sneaking Sour Patch Kids from a bowl of candy in the living room (but that would have been incriminating evidence, right?). I suppose the sign did say "Help yourself...."

We've looked at others (7 total so far), but these were the most interesting ones. Not included in the above list, though, is the one we currently like the best...but we'll save details about the house we end up with for when we actually....end up with it.

I'd love to hear your memories of house or apartment hunting, so feel free to share any stories! :)

I think the worst places to look at are the rented ones (no offense-hah!) because usually the tenants don't care about what state the house is in for viewings. We saw one that stank of urine and they had turned a closet in to a bedroom by cutting a mattress to fit. Also saw a house that had an extreme lean and felt like it was going to fall over. The house we ended up buying was the one that was presented the best, although hopefully we will see the potential in houses next time we are looking. Enjoy! It is a lot of fun and you will always remember it.

Hey why the change of looking now versus waiting the previous alotted time? House hunting is SOOO much fun especially if you are doing it leisurely without an absolute need to fine one NOW. My two favorite houses we went into when looking was the dead person house. They were trying to sell it for twice the appraised value, and it literally smelled like dead people Mike and my Realtor wouldn't even go in it, i plugged my nose and went for the dive but couldn't make it past the first floor. i really dont know what that smell was. And my second favorite was the house that someone tried to flip. It looked pretty, but when you walk over the carpet and you foot sinks through it you have to expect there is no floor underneath, and the toilet was literally in the middle of the bathroom floor. All it all we are so happy with our wonderful outdated home purchase we are having so much fun redoing it all. In fact we are having a demolishing party next saturday the 13th if you are available you can learn how to knock down some walls. We are completely ripping out our kitchen :) i love it

The house next door to ours is for sale :-P Although it is a little bit farther than our good ol hometown.

My parents house is for sale too...you know you want to live next to my awesome neighbors and their dogs, cats, goats, pigs, birds and other random critters. You may even find a troll or two lurking in the attic :-p